Monitoring and control systems such as used to supervise processing plants and manufacturing processes and machines have become a critical part of operations. A report of an unsafe or hazardous condition can shut down an entire facility operation resulting in huge costs and delays. Wired systems often use redundant conductor paths from the field station sensor/actuators to the base station to avoid incorrect signals or total loss of signals due to accident or failure. Wireless systems have become much more appealing due to their lower installation cost and ease of installation and redeployment. One problem with wireless and even wired systems is that if anything interferes with the delivery of the signal from the sensor/actuator transducer at a field station faulty reports or even worse no reports can precipitate a variety of unnecessary effort before the true situation can be determined. Redundancy is always a solution but often it adds to the complexity and power required as well as to the cost.